Caller identification translates a calling party into a name and number for display on the called device to allow the called party to recognize the calling party. For example, when a calling party dials the called party, a caller identification system recognizes that the calling party is a customer and verifies that the calling party is not blocked. In turn, the identification system generates name and number information referring to the calling party and sends it to the called party. When the called party's device “rings”, the called party sees the name and number information of the calling party.
Some phones locally store additional information about the calling party, such as a picture, birthday, or place of employment. If the called party has stored other information about the calling party, for example, it would be displayed on the called party's device. This information is owned and controlled by the called party. In other phones, a computer telephone integration (CTI) application on a personal computer or mobile application connects to a server to obtain additional information about a call, for example, an employee directory. This uses the incoming calling party number to obtain more information such as where the calling party is located, organizational chart or picture, etc. The calling party number is used by the application as a key to retrieve this additional information.
Security is one of many drawbacks in current systems as application data is not protected or restricted and is generally accessible to all individuals. Security features cannot be implemented when the information is owned and controlled by the called party. Furthermore, anyone with the application and a phone number is given access to the application data when a call is made, or depending on the application, a call does not even need to be made.
The world of social media truly extends the identity of a person but has little relation to the basic telephony concepts of caller identification or telephone numbers. Accessing social media information requires a computing device and application, as well as information such as a user name or email address. Access to information is controlled via requests to “join” or “friend” other users with the application. These requests must be granted and reciprocated before information is exchanged.
The common element of all social media applications is the use of a unique identifier to represent a user. Two users who wish to connect must exchange this unique identifier and grant access to each other, perhaps with varying privilege levels to the application data. A mobile device can store a person's social media information with their number as part of a contact entry, but this implies the social media information is known in advance when the contact is created. An incoming call from a previously unknown person cannot be used to obtain social media information.
A centralized directory or other database system is used to lookup the number and locate the email address or other social media information associated with the number, if available. This information is used with the social media application directly. For example, using Facebook® application, a username is found and a friend request is made. This relies on the Facebook access control list to then wait until the friend accepts. It also exposes the information to anyone who has access to this directory. A telephone number alone is not unique enough to provide a one to one mapping, as is the case with a home phone number containing many Facebook users.
Modifying caller identification is not a new concept, but the name portion is critical to recognizing the caller, and the number portion is limited in size and formatting such that it is not suited to carrying application specific data. It would not scale to support many applications, as there would be no way to associate any given data to a specific application. Moreover, if the called device did not support the application, no behavior would be defined. The value of the calling party number is that it is stored as a contact, or retrieved from the device call logs, and used to contact the original caller. So direct called party number spoofing would break traditional usage models and not be compatible with use cases of telecommunication systems.
Social media applications often embed phone numbers and click-to-dial concepts, but this is used from within the application to reach out to the telephony network. It does not provide a mechanism for the telephony network to reach into the media application. If the originating and destination device support texting, a text message is sent with the information. However, a separate call would be made if the user actually wanted to speak to the person.
Voice over internet protocols (VoIP) are augmented to pass data for use by the end system or intermediate switching system applications. This, however, is not compatible across any non-VoIP transmission hops or devices. All VoIP gear in the path of the call must support the signaling to insure end to end success.
A need therefore exists to allow a basic phone call to provide application data that can be used to drive behaviors on the called device. At the same time, the calling party name should reflect who is calling and the number provided should be a routable directory number so that it can be used to reach the original caller, for example, the call needs to be returned or it is stored as a contact.